1. Field of the Invention
The technology for producing ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride has undergone major changes in the past decade. Until the mid-1960's vinyl chloride was generally manufactured by the hydrochlorination of acetylene. Acetylene, however, is substantially more costly than ethylene; hence, strong motivation existed to develop a process based entirely on ethylene. Such a process was successfully developed in the past, having as its key step, the oxyhydrochlorination of ethylene to ethylene dichloride. As a result, the acetylene-based process has, in recent years, been almost completely replaced by the more economical ethylene-based process.
2. Description of the Prior Art
While ethane is even less expensive than ethylene and consequently considerable effort has been expended in the past to develop an ethane-based ethylene dichloride process, these efforts, however, did not culminate in a commercially adaptable process.